


Three Weddings that Never Happened

by Josselin



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-09-15
Updated: 2003-09-18
Packaged: 2018-01-20 16:59:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1518272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Josselin/pseuds/Josselin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three weddings that never happened (thank god).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by Rei Kinneas's "All in the Timing" and the "five things that never happened" challenge that's been floating around forever. I was going to do five things, but, uh, I ran out of ideas after three.

ONE

"I can't believe we're talking about what we're going to wear to Emmett's wedding," Michael says. He, Brian, and Ted are all standing in Ted's apartment, laying various suits and such out on Ted's couch. "I mean, this is Emmett. My roommate of three years."

"Yeah," Ted agrees. "And we're not talking about matching fuschia tutus or anything."

"I can't believe you two are even going," Brian cuts in sharply, raiding Ted's cabinets for hard liquor and sneering at various assortments of wine. "You haven't even talked with him in months."

"Brian!" Michael scolds. "Going to his wedding is the least we can do for a friend like Emmett."

"It's more like his funeral," Brian suggests, finally locating an acceptable beer in the refrigerator. "Emmett's dead, and his body has been taken over by pod aliens from outer space. Hey," he says snidely, popping the cap off the bottle, "wasn't that a Captain Astro issue? Invasion of the hetero pod aliens?"

"Help yourself to some beer, Brian," Ted says sarcastically, and Brian just grins in response.

"He's only inviting you so that his pod alien friends can get their hooks into you, too, and start inviting you to 'See the Light' meetings and other shit." Brian sets his beer on the counter and walks up behind Michael. "It's like 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers,'"Brian elaborates. "First, they lure you into a false sense of complacency with a really long, boring sermon. But then, the moment you relax into the boredom and fall asleep, head lolling against the pew--they strike!" Brian gooses Michael, who screams.

"That's not funny!" Michael protests, but Brian's laughing and even Ted is chuckling.

"And then," Brian continues, heading back to the counter and his beer, "they've got you. And it's too late. You should come to Babylon with me, instead."

TWO

Lindsay's marriage to "that fucking frog," as Brian put it, united Brian and Melanie in a way everyone would have previously thought impossible. But suddenly it was the two of them marching over to claim Gus for an afternoon, and it was the two of them drinking at Woody's late into the night, Mel repenting her sins and Brian wondering how Lindsay had lost her mind.

One evening in the bar, when Brian was drunk and tripping and probably in a condition similar to the one he was in when Lindsay managed to convince him to donate for her to have Gus, Melanie convinced Brian to marry her.

It starts off when Brian tells Mel, in no uncertain terms, that she should get off her ass, stop whining, and go sue that French bastard for all he was worth, and "get custody of my kid while you're at it."

"Your kid," Melanie says, self-pity disappearing in the heat of the moment. "That's precisely what the problem is here. Gus is 'your kid,' not mine. So I can't go into the hospital with him when he's sick, and now, I have no more rights to see him than any other person in this universe."

Brian doesn't seem to be paying attention. "And tell Pierre--"

"It's Guillaume," Melanie corrects acidly.

"That he needs to get the hell out of the country before I report his ass to the authorities." Brian does another shot.

"This is all your fault in the first place," Melanie sets in on Brian.

"Damn right," Brian agrees. "I knew it was a mistake to have a kid."

"If you had just signed over the custody rights when we asked the first time, then none of this would have happened."

"So you getting horny and cheating is *my * fault?" Brian says, his tone equally acid.

They fight longer, and eventually Melanie's in tears and Brian's virtually incoherent. Neither one of them remembers what happened later that night, but somehow, the next morning, they find themselves having blood tests done and posting bans in the newspaper five counties over, and both praying devotedly that no one they know will ever read the Applecorn County Sun.

Brian's smug that his blood test comes out negative, after all the bitching Mel had done about it, but he still wants to get one thing clear as they walk into the courthouse. "Just so you know," he says to Melanie. "This is just so we can get my kid--"

"Our kid," Melanie corrects.

"Back," Brian continues. "But don't think that I am ever," he rubs his brows with a pained expression on his face, "ever, going to fuck you."

"Mr. Kinney," Melanie says, holding the door open for Brian. "I wouldn't *let* you fuck me if you were the last person on earth."

"Good," Brian says. "As long as we're clear." And he gets the last word with, "Mrs. Kinney."

THREE

Deb had sewn her own gown for the wedding, and that was painfully obvious to anyone who saw her. And everyone had seen her. She'd already modeled the gown, in various stages of production, eight times at the diner.

David, Vic, Michael, and even Brian had each offered to buy her something special to wear for the occasion, but she refused, of course, kissing Michael's forehead and exclaiming for the hundredth time that this was the one and only time that her one and only baby was going to be married. "And to a doctor!" She gushes, pinching David's cheek too, for good measure.

"Hey," Justin cut in, walking past with a basin full of dirty silverware. "I thought I was your baby now."

Deb rushes to assure Sunshine of his important place in her life, Michael gives Justin a dirty look and Justin gives him a smug look in return, and Brian carefully eyes Justin to make sure he's not having any trouble with his hand.

The wedding itself is an interesting affair, with David's staid and professional friends taking up the left side of the church, and everyone Deb has ever met squeezed into the right side. Deb cries through the whole ceremony into Justin's shoulder in the front row, and Brian looks painfully uncomfortable as Michael's best man, but had shown up under death threats from everyone he knew.

At the reception, Brian and David's kid blow spitballs at each other, until Brian spikes the punch and drags Justin away from Debbie for a quickie in the men's room.

And when the happy couple drives away in Michael's precious golden car, Michael turns back when he thinks he heard a faint whisper of Brian's voice behind him, saying, "Bye, Mikey." When he looks back, though, he sees his mother, Brian, and Justin all standing together with each other, without a place for him. And he wonders if there ever had been a place for Mikey in Brian's life.

END


	2. The Sequel to the Second Wedding that Never Should Have Happened

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trouble really started after Mel moved into the loft...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An on-going sequel to the second marriage that never should have happened. All of this evilness is Starla's fault! :)

The real problems began after Mel moved into the loft.

"It's only for three days, I swear," she insisted at first, as Brian shot daggers at Mel hanging a garment bag on one of the poles near the couch. "Just until my cousin Rita finishes having her puppy house-trained."

But then cousin Rita decided that her true vocation was to become a carnival dog trainer, and then the child services people came to investigate as Justin was making spinach lasagna, and Brian could see that this was the beginning of the end...

* * *

"Brian, dear," Melanie said through gritted teeth. "Why don't you get some coffee for the nice child services people?" Brian hesitated for a moment, staring at Justin grating cheese at the counter and the three women sitting on his couch as though he had suddenly gone through a time warp and was no longer aware of who or what he was. Then he shook his head slightly, and went to the kitchen, absently bumping into Justin, as though he had totally forgotten he was there, and poured two mugs of coffee.

He took the coffee over the the couch, and sat down in a chair next to Mel, setting the mugs on the coffee table in front of the visitors. The one on the right sipped her mug nervously, and then one on the left--a redhead--was still eyeing Justin in the kitchen. "So," the redhead began. "This is your residence?"

"Uh, yes," Melanie agreed, a sickly sweet smile still plastered on her face. "Or, at least, until we buy a house. You know," she continued to the women, "something with room for Gus, and a backyard and everything. Right, dear?" She said, elbowing Brian sharply.

"Of course," Brian agreed smoothly, and in the kitchen, Justin snickered.

* * *

The court battle raged on for weeks, and periodically, Brian stalked Guillaume at the supermarket to exchange macho insults.

Brian threatened to tell immigration authorities about Guillaume's sham of a marriage; Guillaume threatened to tell child services about Brian's "what I believe you Americans call the, eh, 'sex life'? Non?"

After she got home from court in the evenings, Melanie started the search for a nice, suburban, straight-laced house, "just for appearances," she assured Brian, and discovered via Justin, the new cook/housecleaner/babysitter, that his mother had always kind of wanted to be a realtor.

* * *

Brian gives the two women a tour of the loft, with less emphasis on the bedroom than his tours usually include, and the wind up in the kitchen, where Justin is just pulling the lasagna out of the oven.

"And who is this, again?" The blonde woman asks.

"He's my housekeeper," Brian says, at the same moment that Melanie proclaims Justin the babysitter.

"He's kind of a housecleaner-slash-cook-slash-babysitter," Melanie covers. "Multipurpose," she tries to smile.

"Live-in," Brian adds.

"Really?" The redhead says skeptically. "And where do you sleep?" She asks Justin.

Justin takes the fork of lasagna he was tasting out of his mouth and is about to say something when Melanie buts in.

"He sleeps...on the floor!" She says frantically. "He's uh...Polish," she continues, shrugging helplessly and sending 'help-me' glares at Brian.

"Yeah," Brian says, looking like he just swallowed a lemon. "All Polish people like to sleep on the floor. It's a traditional...Polish...thing." He gives Melanie a warning glare.

"Uh, ciao?" Justin offers, smiling helplessly.

Brian kicks him in the shins and looks at him warningly, and Justin cowers back, deciding there's definitely something he needs from the 'fridge.

"Justin speaks lots of languages," Melanie continues nervously. "We think the multicultural perspective will be very good for raising Gus. Isn't that right, Brian?"

Brian nods.

"So," the redhead says. "Is Justin a traditional Polish name?"

* * *

“Oh, that,” Brian says, smiling disarmingly. “Melanie’s agreed to convert for the sake of the children. Right, dear?”

Mel smiles and promises to do evil things to Brian with her eyes. “Of course. I love to go to church with Brian.”

“You mean mass,” Brian corrects. “She gets confused sometimes,” he explains to the women, who nod understandingly.

END


	3. More Evilness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of the marriage that never should have happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it just keeps going and going and going. But I think it's finished now.

Finally, Brian wrests from the court his God-given right to take his family to McDonalds every Wednesday evening. Justin orders huge quantities of disgustingly greasy food even though Brian tries to warn him that this kind of grease intake is bound to lead to pimples on his ass, and then he'll be out on his ass. Melanie holds Gus tightly, squeezing him like the precious thing that he is, food ignored as tears begin to form in her eyes, until Gus begins to cry as well.

Then Brian tells her to "stop fucking holding him so tight," and takes Gus into his own arms, to soothe his son.

People always tell them the baby looks just like Brian.

After eating, they go back to the loft, and all just sit on the couch while Mel holds Gus, trying somehow to soak up Gus's presence. But the baby isn't really very entertaining, and Justin begins to fidget shortly, his fingers searching for a pencil, and Brian gets up to get a drink.

At nine o'clock, Melanie gets up to go take Gus back, and an already-wasted Brian calls Michael to come pick him up and take him to Babylon. Justin's ears perk up as he hears this, but Brian refuses to take him along, and Melanie and Justin don't see Brian again until after work the next day.

* * *

Mel pretends she doesn't hear Brian and Justin fucking in the night through the panels that set off Brian's bed; Brian pretends he doesn't hear her crying on the couch. Justin, who doesn't seem to know the meaning of the word 'discretion' despite memorizing it on his SAT vocab list, comments to Brian in the shower. "Mel seems sad, doesn't she?"

Brian grunts noncomittally.

"You should do something to cheer her up," Justin suggests, soaping Brian's back.

"What the fuck could I do to cheer her up?" Brian asks, and even Justin doesn't have an answer to that.

* * *

Later, Brian doesn't even remember what it was Justin did that set him off, just that it was something that he thought wasn't safe, something that was dangerous for Justin or Gus any of the other fucking children who have ended up living at his place.

But he remembers the look on Justin's face after he slapped him, the way Justin was too startled to cry, the way he just looked at him with big eyes, raising his hand to his face in disbelief. He remembers the way Justin just looked at him with those eyes as he yelled, and he remembers how very much that made him want to slap Justin again.

He runs into Melanie on his way out of the loft, but he ignores her shouted questions, and can barely hear her inquiry of Justin through the metal door. "Christ," she says to the poor boy. "What happened to you?"

Melanie finds him later at the bar, and she must have had some help from Michael or something, because he isn't at Woody's or any of the other places on Liberty Avenue. No, he's at his father's bar, out in the boondocks, in his place with the other child-abusing pieces of shit. And he keeps hearing his father's voice echoing in his ear. "Men like you and me, Sonnyboy, we're just not meant to be family men." "Don't let the women tie you down, Sonnyboy. Don't let 'em catch ya."

Melanie bitches at him for a while, and he doesn't say anything, staring into his glass, until she seems mostly finished, and proclaims that she has half a mind to take Justin right to the police station and have Brian written up.

"Right," Brian says hoarsely. "You do that. You take little Sunshine into the police station, and explain that I've been fucking abusing our 17-year-old *Polish* housekeeper. I'll just come with you, and we can turn all three of us into the police at the same time. Justin can go back to his own sack of shit abusive father, who'll probably be overjoyed to see me in jail. And Gus can grow up happy and French."

"Christ," Melanie swears, getting up from her stool so she can pace around and gesture more violently. "Just," she says finally, "just what the fuck did you think you were doing? How the fuck did you think you could do that?"

And that gets him again, and he throws his glass at the wall, and after he hears it shatter he's suddenly aware that everyone in the bar is looking at him. "I wasn't fucking meant to be a family man!" He shouts, glaring at Melanie, raging at the universe.

Melanie just looks at him for one minute that seems to drag on into an eternity. "Stand up," she says briskly. "We're leaving."

She drives the jeep back to his loft, and when they're riding up in the elevator, she explains to him how it's going to be. "You're going to go in there," she says, steel in her voice, "and you're going to apologize to that poor kid. And tomorrow morning you're going to kiss Justin as you drop him at school. When you get home from work, you're going to fuck Justin and spend time with your kid. There will be no drinking, no drugs, no tricks, and no violence. Do you understand me?" She asks, and Brian doesn't say anything, just shifts his eyes to the side.

"And I don't care if that's not how you're meant to be," Melanie continues, "because this is how it fucking is."

They walk into the loft, and Justin is still there, and when he sees Brian he bursts into tears and throws himself into Brian's arms, which just makes Brian cringe, because obviously the kid has no sense of self-preservation whatsoever, and he fucking needs someone to protect him.

Melanie gives Brian a look and then retreats off to the bathroom, leaving them in relative privacy. "Justin," Brian says gruffly, finally raising his hands to ineffectually and tenatively pat Justin's back, "I'm..." he pauses, because this is bullshit, but he has to say it, and he fucking hates himself for that. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, Brian," Justin hiccups, "I'm sorry, too." And that makes Brian cringe again, and he tries to think of how to tell Justin that it isn't his fault, but he can't think of it, so he just kind of pats Justin's back again, feeling completely fucking useless.

And when Mel comes out of the bathroom, she looks approvingly at Brian holding Justin on the bed. Brian falls asleep holding Justin in his arms, but for the first time, they're both fully clothed.

* * *

Melanie knows that Lindsay's jealous, she knows Lindsay that well, at least, even if she could never understand Linz's fascination with the man.

One time, when they're exchanging Gus at the park, Lindsay asks about Brian. "He's so different now," Lindsay says, in that soft voice that Melanie misses so much. "He's so quiet with Gus, and so nice to Justin all the time. He's not rude and always making sick jokes and such. How do you do it?" She inquries finally.

"With Brian," Melanie says confidently, "you just need to take a firm hand. You and Michael, you're too indulgent, letting him act like a goddamned three-year-old. I was strict with him, told him it was time to act like a man."

"Mmm hmm," Lindsay says mysteriously. "Better not let him hear you say that."

* * *

Michael stops coming around after a while, ostensibily because he's busy with David but really because Brian isn't fun anymore. He's not the same guy who used to walk around the toy store with Michael, demonstrating with lurid gestures how each of the toddler toys could be used for various sexual activities. Brian doesn't go out, Brian doesn't drink, and Brian doesn't really even smile. Brian just holds Gus quietly, sitting in the corner.

* * *

Mel gets the call in the middle of the day, at work. She's called out of a meeting with a client, and there's a police officer there waiting for her, and for a moment she's convinced that she's about to be arrested for lying about Justin to the child services people and only hopes that they forget to mirandize her or something else useful that she can hang on to in court. Then they start explaining that they're very sorry to tell her this, but her husband was killed in a car accident, and those words--her husband, car accident--are so foreign that she can't really even comprehend it.

Melanie has to tell Justin, later, and Justin protests through his tears. "But, that's impossible," he argues, and Mel has to agree that though she spent years wishing Brian Kinney would drop off the face of the earth, it did seem impossible that the man would ever die. "No, I mean the car having a problem," Justin insists innocently. "I was just with Brian at the mechanic's last week, having the Jeep checked out. He was talking to the guy for hours, it seemed like, and he kept sending me off to buy bags of chips and shit while the two of them went on about belts and brakes and what happens if one them gets a rip and stuff."

There's some question during the investigation as to what, exactly, caused Mr. Kinney's fatal car accident. But they manage to collect the life-insurance money.

END (Feedback welcome in comments)


	4. Why Suicide Never Pays

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story that wouldn't die continues...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because [](http://sisabet.livejournal.com/profile)[**sisabet**](http://sisabet.livejournal.com/) assures me that amorphous blob fic is the next big thing.

So Justin manages to trap Brian's spirit in an old fish tank. He set a trap using a large pile of poppers and condoms set out on the middle of Brian's bed, and when the blue lights started to shimmer a bit (though it was hard for Justin to tell through his tears), he slammed the aquarium over the top of the pile.

Now, he has an amorphous blob trapped in his sister's fish tank and he can hear Brian talking in his head.

"Justin," Brian's voice says seductively. "Go into the storage closet, and get a hammer."

"Why?" Justin asks.

Justin can hear Brian breathing throatily, and as he gets harder, it's harder for him to think straight. Brian laughs a little bit. "Don't worry about that. Just get the hammer. You know you want to. For me."

Brian's voice gets quieter as Justin gets further from the tank, but he still finds himself almost sleepwalking back with the hammer.

"Good," Brian purrs. "Now, just break that fish tank into a thousand little pieces..."

Justin snaps out of his reverie. "No way! Then you'll escape."

Brian starts ranting and swearing, so Justin walks over to the kitchen for a while so he won't have to listen to it. "Plus," he calls to the tank from the kitchen, "then you'll have glass shards all over your bed. They might get stuck in your ass while you're fucking some guy."

"Or they might get stuck in my ass," Justin continues, thinking aloud. He takes a jar of mayonaise out of the 'fridge and begins to make a sandwich. "I wonder if ghosts can even have sex?"

* * *

Keeping the tank in the middle of the bed was too inconvenient when Justin was trying to sleep in the bed, so he slipped a piece of cardboard under the bottom of it, and slid it out to keep in Brian's closet, taping the cardboard on for extra security.

A few weeks later, when Mel made him vacate the loft and he moved into Michael's old room at Deb's, he brought the tank with him, displacing some old trophies of Michael's to make room for it on the shelf. Deb offered to buy him some fish and a fake plant for it, but he declined, and she sort of nodded and left the room--they're all really sensitive to him in his time of mourning.

Michael's room was small enough that Justin could hear Brian's voice from anywhere in the room, and sometimes he heard echoes of it downstairs in the kitchen. He knows that Vic thinks he's really insane because Vic has overheard him having these 'imaginary' conversations with Brian through the door. But Justin doesn't care.

Brian cares. "Christ," he complains constantly. "Stuck forever with a twink in Mikey's room. Shit. This really is hell."

* * *

Eventually, by paying a lot of attention in chemistry class and asking some pressing questions of his teacher, Justin figures out a way to transfer Brian's spirit from the fish tank into a small locket, which he then wears around his neck, much to Brian's disgust.

Unfortunately, Justin is then called into the counselor's office at St. James. Apparently they've talked to the chemistry teacher and are concerned that he's either trying to practice satanic rituals or attempting to blow up the school. "You should do that," Brian encourages him. "I tried to blow my school up but yours is way worse."

"You really think so?" Justin asks, gathering strange looks from the shrink, who is watching him sit in the waiting room while they wait for his mother to arrive.

"Hell, yeah," Brian says. "You should have told me what assholes the other kids at school were."

"I did tell you," Justin protests.

"Whatever. You definitely need to blow them up."

"I don't think violence is the answer. They just need to be educated." Justin smiles at the shrink, who is still eyeing him with a concerned expression.

"You've been spending too much time with Deb. Trust me."

* * *

Brian and Justin finally come to a compromise and plan an elaborate practical joke to be carried out on at the St. James prom. It involves what Deb would later call "a distinctly Brian-like genius," a goat, five drag queens, and twelve bunches of bananas.

After the prom, Justin is gloating on the way back to the car that Mel bought for him with some of Brian's life insurance money. Brian isn't around to drive him to school anymore, after all.

A banana and goat-shit covered figure emerges menacingly from behind one of the cars--Justin never sees who hit him. A parking lot attendent finds his body later, when it's already cold on the cement. And next to it, a small broken locket, shattered to pieces.

THE END (REALLY. I MEAN IT THIS TIME.)


End file.
